ISSUE: Spring 2016
I descended into the underworld again
in my dream and there for the umpteenth time
stood my father in a plaid button-down shirt
and khakis a freshly lit pipe a wreath of smoke
around him whiffs of aftershave it was nothing
like death or suppose I should say it was nothing
like life with all its waste and junk the cells
rigged with their own end flesh irradiated
dissected and stitched instead he was himself
more himself maybe than he ever was in life
I wanted to speak to him and say come back
come back but my voice was drowning in itself
I knew he could not come with me not without
being changed I must have known this even
in my sleep in our dreams when we descend
into ourselves and beyond ourselves we who
descend and return too have been changed
Aeneas returned to found Rome although
all he wanted was to hold his father again
I have founded nothing I have found nothing
I am reaching out to grasp it in my arms
